Book Marketing Priority List for Non-Fiction Authors

Your book is out. And now you're looking at my book, self promote and Succeed. You got your copy, right? If not, I'll give you one in just a second. Hang on. But you're looking at that book and you're going, omg, there's a hundred, if not a thousand things I should be doing to market my book. Where do I start? Well, if you're thinking that, you're going to be so happy to hear that this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers, a full service self publishing company helping you write, publish and promote a nonfiction book to grow your brand and your business. Business. Let's talk book marketing. To make your life a little easier, we're going to break it up into three groups. We're going to go high priority to do's, medium level to dos, and your low level to do's. I get it. The to do list is. And the reality is that it's almost impossible for me to do this video generically because every author has different goals and different goals require different strategies and different tactics. But to help you, I'm going to focus on authors that want to build their business and their brand around their book. And with that in mind, let's start with the last things you have to worry about if you haven't done the other things that we're going to talk about. In other words, these are the low priority items in your book marketing plan. That doesn't mean don't do them. It means there's higher value activities to focus on first. So let's see, let's call these items the big B's, not the big broads. But the big B's are blogging, bookstore signings, bookstore distribution, book fairs, blog tours, bought best seller lists, and book awards. All Bs. Will you sell books doing some of these things? Yes. It's not a not to do list. It's a low priority to do list. Bookstore signings sometimes sell books, and book fairs will likely move a few copies. That said, hour for hour or dollar for dollar, these are not activities that are going to do a lot to grow your business or your brand or even sell that many books. Again, doesn't mean don't do them. I personally do not enjoy book signings. I spent more time telling people where the bathroom is, how to find the cookbook section, or where the local Starbucks is than I did signing books. But you might be more famous. Book might be more compelling than what I had to offer at that time. But Some of our authors have loved their book events at bookstores, so it depends on your book and your community and what you want to be doing. Speaking of bookstores, let's talk bookstore distribution. I kind of feel like I've talked about this a lot, but if you're new to this channel, I'll link to a video at the end where I did some math and broke it down for you. Bookstore Distribution well, the short answer is it feels so good to have your book in a bookstore, but the math still stinks for you to focus on this. So watch that video at the end. Blogging well, yeah, it helps with SEO, but as a strategy for an author, it's a slow way to get things done, so you better love being a blogger. Book Fairs well, I think some books will be great at book fairs. We had a student in our Book Marketing Magic class with a book that we suggested he focus on book fairs and local markets. It was a story specific to the state of Nevada, Go Knights, go. And we figured that it would do really well at markets and book fairs with the audience it was written to. Also, he didn't want to do online marketing, so it just made sense. But for most of us, not probably the place you want to focus. Bought Bestseller Lists well, again, I feel like this is a topic I've covered extensively, but if you're new, here's the short version. You have to have a great plan for making the most of that status as a bestseller to make it worth it. Especially if you're paying somebody 5,000 to 100,000, which is what those ranges are. And for the love of that almighty dollar, please do not pay to be an Amazon bestseller. It is not worth it. Everyone and their dog if you could see my feet, you'd see my pink sandals and my dog. Everyone and their dog can get an Amazon bestseller status. And even worse, if you pay somebody to guarantee it, you can permanently damage the Amazon algorithm so it never shows your book to the right people in the future. So please save your money and do it the organic way. Book Awards well, it can be real fun to say you're a book award winner and it sounds good. My book Self Publish and Succeed won 1514 book awards. Did it sell more books? Probably not. Does it sound cool and give me more credibility? Well, you tell me in the comments below. Most of the awards aren't really anything that's valued in the industry. A few were highly credible and really great to win, but really only for libraries and bookstores do those awards do much for me as far as I can tell. So those were the low priority items. I'd also put start a podcast on that list, unless it's part of your bigger picture plans. It didn't start with a B, so I left it off. And there are other fabulous reasons to start your own podcast, but for the reason of selling your book, you're better off focusing on being an awesome guest and getting on other people's podcasts. Low priority. Move aside. You can do a bit of those things, but I wouldn't recommend putting a lot of time or money into them unless you've really intensely done the high and medium level activities or you're really passionate about doing one of them. Okay, so what are some of the medium priority items? Well, this is a tougher one for me to summarize in a cool way because it's got like Social media Editorial Reviews Ebook sales. Let's see. I'm going to ask ChatGPT if it can come up with an acronym for me. Let me just see. Hang on one second while I go look. Okay, I'm going to call it. Thanks for the idea, Chatty. I'm going to call this one Embers. So E is for Editorial Reviews Paying for Kirkus Reedsy I think it's Reedsy Discovery Netgalley. These are pricey endeavors and there isn't a ton of business or brand building value given the price. You can use these editorial reviews on your Amazon page, your media kit, your sales sheet, and it will help you appeal to libraries and bookstores. But again, bigger picture, strategy matters a lot. Which reminds me, Self Promote and Succeed. You can buy it anywhere books are sold or download the audiobook version for free at Self Promote and Succeed Audio. It's my gift to you and in that you'll get the strategy and tactics to be able to match it all up based on your goals. No need to thank me. A subscribe to the channel and a like will do okay. M Mainstream Media Outreach of course it feels amazing to be on network tv. I've done my fair share and it was a blast, but it doesn't sell a ton of books. That might surprise you, but it can be great for your credibility in your brand. So it's not low priority, but it's time and money intensive. You'll need to do a ton of outreach or pay publicists to do it. Other media like periodicals and radio are similar and still fall into that mid priority list and should really only matter to you if it's going to directly help your business goals. Again, it rarely sells books. It might seem hard to believe, but it's mass media, not targeted. And imagine the mom with the news on in the morning running around the house trying to get her kids ready for school while she gets ready for her own workday. She might look, I love what you said on the news that morning, but she won't stop and buy your book in that moment. And will she remember you or your book later? Not if she got to go to school because her 7 year old got in trouble for teaching his friends yo mama jokes and she had to sit there and not laugh while hearing how disruptive it's been to hear that all the boys are telling yo mama jokes because her son looked them up on YouTube and Google and taught all his buddies. But seriously, media attention has value. But for it to really work, you need a lot of media in a very short period of time. That was the E and the M. Now for the B. B is for BookBub Ads. This is not a great playground for nonfiction authors. I've tried and I've talked to bookbub ad specialists and they don't disagree. Some nonfiction authors have had success with them and they are really effective if you can get a bookbub feature deal. And they also have chirp for selling audiobooks. So if you've had success with bookbub for nonfiction books, please let me know. E is for ebook sale or free or 99 cent ebook deals every 90 days or six months. You might want to give your book a boost and run an ebook sale. All right, so these kind of promotions can give your book a good boost. Is it going to sell a lot of books that get read, leading to brand or business growth? Unlikely. Does it mean you don't do it? Well, no, because there's other reasons to do it, like trying to get more reviews and to reinvigorate your book in the eyes of the Amazon algorithm. But it takes time and money to set them up and manage them. And they really are best for that Amazon algorithm if your sales have slipped or just trying to get some reviews. So they're not going to be huge value. But there is value in them, which is why I'm the mid list. I'm not a big advocate for running free promos of ebooks unless it's part of a funnel where you're going to get an email address. Free books don't have a lot of value to the reader and they don't get read very often for fiction authors. It gives the reader a taste of what is to come and makes more sense. But for nonfiction I have not found free ebook sales to be effective. Again, this is based on dollar and time for results towards business and brand growth. We do these for our clients. It's not useless, it's just not where I would focus. If you haven't done the things that are high priority, I would do a 99 cent ebook sale in launch week on Amazon. If getting on an Amazon bestseller list is important to you. All right, R R is for. Well, I'm not sure actually maybe Reezy discovery, but that's under Editorial Reviews Chatty Help me what book marketing activities start with R since it's your fault that you gave me Embers and there's no R that I have in my list. Oh Chatty, this is a great list. Nice work. We've got reviews, readings, releases, radio, reach out, reprints, retail placements, repurpose, remarketing, reader magnets, rebranding, and write sales. Good list. Even though this isn't how I started, I'm going to say that the R is for repurpose because I think that's an awesome marketing activity that would be mid priority. Turn your book into content for videos, articles, blogs, guest posts, course content, lead magnets, and on and on. I could also argue releases as in release party would be here. They are fun, they have value to enforce your community of your newfound author status, but they are a lot of work and sometimes money for a mid level return. There is an S in Embers and that is social media. You don't have to do social media, but it has value. Whether it's LinkedIn, TikTok, IG or some other platform that you and your audience can connect on. There is value for you and your book, but also for pitching yourself to other people's audiences. You're a lot more appealing to a podcaster or an event booker if they can see you'll be promoting your interview to an audience somewhere. That said, you can sell books and not use social media and you can build a brand and a business without it too. It just helps with discoverability and amplification of messages. Let's get to the top priority activities which are going to be dialing in your metadata are your keywords, category description, book cover, pricing. Is it all working in tandem to sell your book? Book reviews? You need a lot of book reviews to tip the scales like 50 to 100. Which reminds me, if you've read or listened to Self Publish and Succeed or Self Promote and Succeed, would you be so kind as to post a review for my books As a thank you for all this content I create. Thank you. Getting you and your book in front of other people's audiences. Go niche and find partners, promotional partners, podcasts, events and more where you can be in front of an existing audience talking about your message. That is a really, really high priority. Growing your newsletter list, which means creating a great reader magnet or a reason to sign up, like getting my audiobook for free, which I already mentioned, which is self promoteandsucceed.com audio and promoting that. Opt in to grow your newsletter list. And of course all of this requires that you have your author website on point. Another high value activity, high priority paid ads on Amazon. You could also include paid ads to grow your newsletter on Google, Facebook or Instagram. That's enough for today. But if you want a whole lot more, that's what self promote and succeed is for. And I hope to see you on one of our upcoming live streams. Or you can visit booklaunchers.com to hire us to help you to do all of these things. Now there are some so many videos to check out after this one, so let's get into it. Go right here for the one on bookstore distribution, this one over here on book reviews, this one on author websites because you need a good looking one. And this one on paid ads with Chris Panetti. All right, go watch, learn and build that business from your book.